New York, NY, December 21 - Mr. Terry Gainer, Chief of Police, said, "The trend that is having the greatest impact is the emergence of new surveillance devices. Technologies such as drones, body cameras, license plate trackers, audio/video reconnaissance, and facial recognition are causing a large influx in data. This, in turn, is creating a number of challenges for public safety organizations with regard to data management and integration, evidence retrieval, and analytics.

"There is also a significant push towards body-worn devices as a standard technology for police organizations, supported by the establishment and United States Federal investment in the Body-Worn Camera (BWC) Pilot-Partnership Program. One third of the 12,000 police departments in the United States are already using body cameras and new departments are deploying devices every day. Some cities and states are mandating the addition of body-worn devices. But the associated costs are significant, even factoring in the availability of Federal grants as a part of the BWC program.

"Compounding these challenges are the varied legislative requirements associated with these new devices. Laws on evidence management and storage differ from state to state and on the type of crime. Data on minor traffic stops, for example, might only need to be kept for 30-45 days, while DUI data might need to be kept for 3 years or more. Data for federal crimes might need to be kept for the length of the imprisonment, or in some cases, forever. Most states have laws that require that the evidence used in a case be kept for a minimum of 7 years. Despite these inconsistencies, one thing is clear: video from body-worn cameras has a long shelf life."

Mr. Ken Mills, Global Surveillance Strategy & Business Development, EMC, told us, "A challenge I've seen with many public safety organizations is the inability to see the holistic picture when it comes to managing data. Addressing the topic of body-worn devices cannot be done independently of other data sources. In November, I participated on a Secured Cities panel with Rodney Monroe, the recently retired Chief of Police for Charlotte, NC. Chief Monroe highlighted three key things that police departments must to do before deploying body-worn cameras.

Consider the long-term cost.

Develop a complete evidence strategy beyond body cameras; body-worn video is not the only data they will need to manage. Regardless of how they store their body-worn data, police departments must also manage data from a host of other applications like crime labs, digital evidence, surveillance, drones, in-car, license plate recognition, interview rooms, crime scene footage and more.

Ensure that the platform they choose is open and future ready. 'By choosing an open storage platform from EMC,' Monroe said, 'the City of Charlotte not only saved money but we are now able to share critical data across the department.'

"At EMC, we strongly advise against siloed architectures as they are limiting when it comes to the transport, analysis, and value-generation of data. Forward-thinking public safety departments like the City of Charlotte are building a data platform that can collect, store, and manage all these different pools of data. The City of Charlotte implemented a Public Safety Data Lake -- a concept developed by EMC Surveillance that speaks to an open architecture that is scalable and analytics-ready. The data lake infrastructure provides a more cost-effective storage environment with the ability to seamlessly integrate new types of devices while gaining more control over the data."

For the complete interview with Mr. Ken Mills at EMC, and Terry Gainer please click here, or here: www.securitysolutionswatch.com/Interviews/in_Boardroom_EMC_Gainer.html.

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